Scotland’s Josh Kerr is at the peak of his career, a two-time world champion, and just broke the world record in the mile.Australia’s Cam Myers just turned 20 and is nowhere near his peak, yet he is already only a lolly wrapper behind Kerr.Cam Myers is the ninth-fastest man to run the mile.Getty ImagesMyers is quiet, young and intense. He goes to bed early, plays cards between training sessions and knows historical stats about his sport. He is also very fast.Kerr broke the mile record last week. Myers was not in the race but the pace of his 1500 metres in Paris last month suggests that might have been a good thing for Kerr.Over 1500m, Kerr is the No.1 ranked athlete in the world with a season’s best 3:27.62. Myers is world No.2 after that 3:28.00 run.In Glasgow, they will go head-to-head in what is the race of the Commonwealth Games. In fact, it is the event of the Games in terms of quality.In a winnowed-back meet where competition can be patchy, this is a world-class race, with a field also including England’s world champion Jake Wightman and Kenyans Timothy and Reynold Cheruiyot (not brothers). Timothy won silver at the Tokyo Olympics, while Reynold is a world bronze medallist.“Absolutely it is the race of the meet. It’s hugely exciting for Cam,” Australia head coach Andrew Faichney said.“Josh’s whole last year has been fantastic and then to break the record was amazing. It is a fantastic opportunity for Cam to take on and push a man like Josh, who is the best in the world.“Cam is young in the senior ranks, albeit he is 20 now, and has transitioned seamlessly to open-age running. And you have seen he has already been able to beat a lot of the top guys.”He will not be cowed by the idea of facing Kerr, or Wightman and the two Cheruiyots in the Glasgow field.“To have any level of expectation on Cam to win is not fair. To have a level of excitement and belief is fair,” Faichney said.“His form is sensational. He has just broken the national record. He is coming in as hot as he could be.“He will take it to Josh because that is how he races, he is not scared of anyone. He won’t die wondering he will push hard. So absolutely it is the race of the meet.”Myers is second in the world over 1500m this year behind Kerr.But they are not running a 1500m Glasgow. They’ll run a mile.Only the one mile – not 500, as the foot-stomping Proclaimers earworm, borrowed again for the opening ceremony, intones – but for these Games they’ll run 1600m, not 1500m.It’s a nod to the most storied races of the British Empire and Commonwealth Games era, when Roger Bannister and John Landy duelled on the track. England’s Bannister was the first man ever to break four minutes for the mile, in May 1954. Six weeks later the Australian Landy broke his record by a second.The reframing of the race renders a Chariots Of Fire era sentimentality to Games that are on life support.The Scots have not completely come over imperial for the former Empire Games, so the 100m sprint is not the 100-yard dash, nor is there a three-mile race (it’s still a 5000m), and in fact there is no marathon at all – neither metric nor imperial.The mile was the right event to change; it acknowledges not only the race’s history but also the fact of its status in the field of events.Kerr broke Hicham El Guerrouj’s mile record, which had stood for 27 years, ahead of the Games. He became the seventh Brit to hold the mile record. It is a record that means a lot on the islands.So yes, facing the new mile record holder is an intimidating task for the young Myers. But put differently, Myers is the ninth-fastest man ever over the distance, and he is only 20. At 16, he ran the fastest time ever for someone of his age.When Kerr broke the record in London at the Diamond League last Sunday, the American Olympic silver medallist Yared Nuguse was second.At the Prefontaine Classic earlier this month, Myers beat Nuguse and Cole Hocker, the Olympic champion from Paris, as he set a new Oceania record of 3.46.06.Myers is a genuine star of Australian athletics. The temptation is to call him a rising star because of his age and the fact he is still rising, but in some ways he has already arrived.